Swiss Sochi success story

When Russia’s Ekaterina Birlova and Evgeniya Ukolova of Russia were eliminated in the first-round of elimination play here Friday morning by a team from Austria in the US$150,000 Sochi Open at Sport Inn in the Black Sea coastal resort, the spotlight moved to a second-round match between fourth-seeded Joana Heidrich/Nadine Zumkehr of Switzerland and 16th-seeded Fan Wang/Yuan Yue of China.

Both teams entered the match as the No. 13 and No. 14 pairs on the women’s Rio provisional Olympic list as the top 15 tandems on the FIVB World Tour, excluding Brazilians, will qualify for the Rio 2016 Summer Games.  Heidrich and Zumkehr (4,120 points for their best 12 international finishes) held a 30 point lead over Wang and Yue (4,090).

With the Swiss posting a 2-1 (21-16, 16-21, 15-9) win in 48 minutes over Wang and Yue, Heidrich and Zumkehr increased their Rio qualifying point total to 4,180) and can add another 50 points to their resume by defeating fifth-seeded Ana Gallay and Georgina Klug Saturday morning in a quarter-final match.

Gallay and Klug (3,930 Olympic qualifying points) entered Sochi as the 15th-ranked team on the Rio listing with a 100-point lead over Birlova and Ukolova (3,830), who were eliminated Friday morning by 15th-seeded qualifiers Barbara Hansel/Stefanie Schwaiger of Austria 2-0 (21-18, 21-17) in 43 minutes,

With their 2-1 (19-21, 25-23, 15-12) win in 50 minutes over Hansel and Schwaiger, Gallay and Klug moved closer to No. 14 Wang/Yue with 100 points now separating the two teams.  With Birlova and Ukolova’s Olympic qualifying total remaining the same, the Russians now trail the Argentineans by 160 points with four more FIVB World Tour events left in the Rio process that started in April, 2015.

When the Swiss women were approached after the match about the importance of the win over the Chinese, Zumkehr said she “wasn’t thinking about the Olympics.  All we cared about was winning and advancing to Saturday.  We do not want to get caught up in thinkin about it right now.  We just want to play a better match than our opponent to win.  That is our goal this week.”

While the Swiss were subdued in their post-match excitement, Gallay and Klug were overjoyed after their win over Austria.  “We are not a big team, so we need to have good ball control and make very few mistakes,” said the 31-year old Klug, who is seeking her first Olympic berth.  “It is a step-by-step process for us.  We try to get better and better with each match.  When playing a team like Austria that is so much bigger than us, we have to control the action and play very consistent.  This was a great moment for us, but there is still a long road to Rio.”

Gallay, who competed in the London 2012 Olympic Games with Virginia Zonta, and Klug have never defeated Heidrich and Zumkehr in three previous FIVB World Tour matches with one of the meetings for the gold medal last September in China when the Swiss posted a 2-0 (2-18, 21-17) win in the 40-minute Xiamen finale.  Two weeks ago in Fuzhou, China, the Swiss scored a 2-1 (13-21, 21-17, 17-15) victory in a 46-minute pool play match.

“We have never defeated the Swiss,” Klug added.  “The big girl (Heidrich) is an excellent blocker and Nadine is a terrific defensive player.  If we play our game and continue to play consistently with good ball control, we will have a chance.  The game will be big for both teams in regards to Olympic qualifying.”

The winner of the quarterfinal match will add 50 more points to their Olympic total as the “Elite 8” matches will feature seven teams from European and the Argentineans.  If Hansel and Schwaiger had defeated Gallay and Klug, it would have marked the first-time that eight women’s team from the European Volleyball Federation (CEV) had reacedh a FIVB World Tour quarter-final.

With Germany having three teams in a FIVB World Tour quarter-final for the ninth-time since the start of women’s international competition in 1992, the European country guaranteed one spot as ninth-seeded Katrin Holtwick/Ilka Semmler meets compatriots Chantal Laboureur/Julia Sude with the winner meeting either the Swiss or Argentineans in Saturday afternoon’s semi-finals.

Holtwick and Semmler, who competed in the London 2012 Olympics Games, hold a 2-1 edge in the series with Laboureur and Sude.  The two teams are the third- and fourth-ranked German teams on the Olympic qualifying list with a maximum of two pairs per country for the Rio competition.

On the top-half of the Sochi Open bracket, top-seeded Karla Borger/Britta Buthe of Germany meet sixth-seeded Elsa Baquerizo/Liliana Fernandez of Spain and 24th-seeded qualifiers Vasiliki Arvaniti/Penny Karagkouni of Greece challenge third-seeded Marta Menegatti/Viktoria Orsi Toth of Italy.

Borger and Buthe, who join Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst as the top two German teams on the Rio ranking list, have won two of three meetings with Elsa and Liliana.  Menegatti and Orsi Toth defeated the Greeks in their only meeting in October 2013 in Phuket, Thailand.  Arvaniti and Karagkouni had to qualify for this week’s Main Draw and are guaranteed their best-ever finish together on the FIVB World Tour.

Following Friday’s two elimination rounds for men and women, Saturday’s schedule will feature quarter- and semi-final matches.  The medal matches will be Sunday where the winning men’s and women’s pairs will each share the $11,000 first-place prizes.

The final four FIVB World Tour qualifying events begin with a stop next week in Turkey (Antalya, 10-15 followed by events in the United States (Cincinnati, May 17-22), Moscow (May 24-29) and Germany (Hamburg, June 7-12).  Also counting towards Olympic qualification will be the European championships June 1-5 in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland.